A PYROMANIAC arsonist started a fire that put 11 families at risk just two weeks after being released from a Dawlish mental hospital by the Ministry of Justice.

Tim Hawkins spent seven years being treated at the Langdon Hospital in Devon after being sentenced under the Mental Health Act in 2014 for trying to burn down a church in Somerset.

He was under a Hospital Order with a restriction, meaning that he could only be released with the approval of Minister of Justice Dominic Raab, or officials acting on his behalf.

Hawkins was freed on the recommendation of psychiatrists in October last year and moved from the hospital at Dawlish to a ground floor flat in Beacon Lane, Exeter.

He stopped taking medication and spent his £3,000 savings on a two-week cocaine binge before deliberately starting a fire in his living room on November 11.

He piled chairs onto a sofa, covered them with a blanket, and used an aerosol spray before setting light to the flat and running out into the street.

A young family lived in the flat immediately above his and 10 others lived in the other apartments in the council-owned block. A passer-by saw smoke and flames and called the fire brigade. 

The building was evacuated without anyone being hurt and Hawkins was arrested after returning to the scene to watch. He told a fire officer that he wanted to burn the place down so he could go back to hospital.

He mocked the police for taking so long to arrive, saying his interview: ’I could have burned down 10 more places before you got here. It is a bit poor really.’

The fire caused £35,000 damage and the other families were kept out of their homes until the building had been made safe.

Hawkins, aged 29, originally of Birds Close, Crewkerne, admitted arson, being reckless whether life was endangered and was jailed for three years and four months by Recorder Mr Neil Millard at Exeter Crown Court.

He remains subject to the Hospital Order with a section 41 restriction that was imposed at Taunton Crown Court in 2014 so will be transferred back to a psychiatric unit when he is released at the half way stage of his sentence.

Recorder Millard told him: ’This was a serious matter because other people lived in the building and were put at risk. You had been released from a hospital order just two weeks earlier.’

Mr Adrian Chaplin, prosecuting, said Hawkins started the fire at around 4 pm on November 11 last year and was seen to run away before coming back to watch.

He said it was likely Hawkins was coming down from the effects of ’hoovering up’ £3,000 worth of cocaine in the days since his release from hospital.

Mr Lee Bremridge, defending, said Hawkins suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and his mental condition lay behind his offending. He said he would find it very hard moving to prison after having been recalled to hospital after the fire.

The previous Hospital Order under section 37 of the Mental Health Act, with a section 41 restriction, was imposed by Recorder Mr Martin Meeke, QC, at Taunton Crown Court in December 2014.

Hawkins admitted three counts of arson. The most serious was at Crewkerne parish church, on June 30, 2014 by setting light to altar cloths and pews, causing £20,000 damage and disrupting church services.

He also started two fires by setting light to timber at Bincombe Beaches Nature Reserve, near Crewkerne, causing a further £5,000 damage.

A doctor’s report prepared for that case diagnosed him as suffering from pyromania; an uncontrollable urge to start fires.

by CROWN COURT REPORTER